Distributed order reaction-diffusion systems associated with Caputo derivatives

Abstract

This paper deals with the investigation of the solution of an unified fractional reaction-diffusion equation of distributed order associated with the Caputo derivatives as the time-derivative and Riesz-Feller fractional derivative as the space-derivative. The solution is derived by the application of the joint Laplace and Fourier transforms in compact and closed form in terms of the H-function. The results derived are of general nature and include the results investigated earlier by other authors, notably by Mainardi et al. [“The fundamental solution of the space-time fractional diffusion equation,” Fractional Calculus Appl. Anal. 4, 153–202 (2001); Mainardi et al. “Fox H-functions in fractional diffusion,” J. Comput. Appl. Math. 178, 321–331 (2005)] for the fundamental solution of the space-time fractional equation, including Haubold et al. [“Solutions of reaction-diffusion equations in terms of the H-function,” Bull. Astron. Soc. India 35, 681–689 (2007)] and Saxena et al. [“Fractional reaction-diffusion equations,” Astrophys. Space Sci. 305, 289–296 (2006a)] for fractional reaction-diffusion equations. The advantage of using the Riesz-Feller derivative lies in the fact that the solution of the fractional reaction-diffusion equation, containing this derivative, includes the fundamental solution for space-time fractional diffusion, which itself is a generalization of fractional diffusion, space-time fraction diffusion, and time-fractional diffusion, see Schneider and Wyss [“Fractional diffusion and wave equations,” J. Math. Phys. 30, 134–144 (1989)]. These specialized types of diffusion can be interpreted as spatial probability density functions evolving in time and are expressible in terms of the H-function in compact forms. The convergence conditions for the double series occurring in the solutions are investigated. It is interesting to observe that the double series comes out to be a special case of the Srivastava-Daoust hypergeometric function of two variables given in Appendix B of this paper. Fractional reaction-diffusion equations are of specific interest in physics for non-Gaussian, non-Markovian, and non-Fickian phenomena.